


Of Yarrow and Mossy Things

by VibraniumWitch



Series: Tender and Green [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Don't copy to other sites, F/M, Fluff, Idiots in Love, Pining, Witchcraft, Witches, a lot of flowers matchmaking and seducing, some suggestive scenarios and cursing, they are so dumb, witch!bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2020-12-28 08:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21133874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VibraniumWitch/pseuds/VibraniumWitch
Summary: He knows the shop must be open, there are some lights on inside, and Natasha wouldn’t waste his time like this. So, he tries again, puts a little bit more of his weight into it.The door opens with a whoosh and Bucky nearly eats it right then and there, barely managing to keep his feet under him. He stands up straight, bewildered, as he consciously unsticks his hand from the handle.“Don’t mind Ianus, he can be a little stubborn.”AKA Bucky meets a witch.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's Halloween season and that means witches. As if I wouldn't write this at any time of the year.
> 
> So, I'm gonna try a multi-chaptered fic for the first time lol. I'll try to update as often as I can and I hope you like it!
> 
> I use sparing Russian (google translate lol) in this for Natasha, which you can hover over to translate (it's a link but it just leads to the same chapter so don't bother clicking) and is also in endnotes for mobile users. 
> 
> I use self-insert abbreviation in this (Y/N), but I use the InteractiveFics extension and sometimes forget to deactivate before posting, so Y/N becomes other names. If that happens, I'm sorry, and please let me know so I can fix it!

Bucky had been looking for a hobby for a while. He’d felt restless not being involved in all the drama of superhero-ing around, but also desperately happy to be out of the fighting business.

So, when Natasha, draped across the arms of his favorite armchair, gives him the narrowed, analytical look he’s learned not to mention, he’s not all that surprised.

“I need a favor,” she says, not even bothering to hide that this is really a favor to him.

“Do you?”

They both know he’s gonna do what she asks, because it’s Natasha, and because Bucky is rattling inside his own skin with the need to do _something_.

“What is it?” he sighs, and she’s got a smug, giddy expression. Barnes has always been a sucker.

“I need some food for my orchids, and I don’t have the time to pick it up.”

“I’m sorry, you want me to go to _Home Depot_ for you?” He’s incredulous, even if it is a relief that this favor doesn’t involve spying on or killing anyone.

“No, [дурак](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21133874/chapters/50293856),” and Bucky rolls his eyes at the scoff in her voice. “Not Home Depot, there’s a shop in the West Village I go to that makes it special for me.”

Frankly, it’s the least surprising thing in the world that Natasha keeps something as finicky as orchids, and even less so that she’s so concerned with their care she would use some expensive, organic shit from a snotty little gardening shop in the Village.

Bucky hates the Village of the 21st century. Hates how the ESU kids snicker at him when he walks past and how the entire area reeks of gentrification, not that it’s a unique sensation in New York. The thought of spending his time there voluntarily sets his teeth on edge.

But, he’s gonna do it anyway, just to wipe the all-knowing expression from Nat’s face, the one that says she’s expecting him to say no. And has an argument prepared in case.

His voice is obnoxiously cheerful when he says, “Sure, Nat! When should I pick it up?”

She doesn’t look shocked at all, and while Bucky should’ve known better than to try and surprise her, it’s frustrating all the same. Standing gracefully from her lounging, she pats him on the cheek as she passes him, radiating self-satisfaction at her triumph.

“You’re a dear, Barnes. I’ll text you the details later.”

\----

Climbing the steps out of the Christopher Street subway station, Bucky has to shield his eyes against the midday sun. He checks his phone for what feels like the fiftieth time, reading over Nat’s snarky instructions and looking for a building number or street name, anything.

He knows it’s not there. She’d said only to take the 1 to Christopher Street and to figure it out from there.

It’s brutally hot, even if it is October, and Bucky ducks into some shade as he tries to call Natasha and yell at her for sending him on a wild goose chase. It goes to voicemail, which isn’t surprising, considering she’d said she had _business_.

He thunks the back of his head against the brick building, eyes closed, wallowing in the misfortune brought by the friends he keeps. When he’s still for a moment, he notices the wind chimes.

There is absolutely no wind to stir the stagnant, concrete-fueled heat, of that he’s certain, so the tinkling sound is out of place. So out of place, the hair on his arm stands on end. 

Perhaps it’s an overreaction; it’s just wind chimes. But Bucky has learned to trust his gut.

So, he follows the sound, taking a moment every half-block or so to tilt his head and focus on where it’s coming from.

Two minutes of walking later, he crosses a street and steps onto the corner of the sidewalk, and the air goes silent, which is astronomically more eerie than windless wind chimes. There are no dogs barking, no cars moving on the street, not even another pedestrian on the whole block. He should be more anxious, should be worried that something nefarious is going on. Instead, it feels like he’s walked into the only calm place in the world, like all the tension that’s been hanging around his ears flushes out of him at once.

And then he’s walking again, doesn’t even consciously start or worry about where he’s headed, just follows what feels like a hook tugging behind his belly button until he’s standing in front of a heavy wooden door with diamond lead glass panes.

He peers in but can’t make anything out, it’s too dark inside and the wavy glass makes everything look like a really out of focus impressionism painting. He steels himself with a deep breath and schools his expression into practiced disinterest as he presses down the lever on the door handle and pushes in.

The door doesn’t budge. Not even in a locked, rattle in the doorframe kind of way.

He knows the shop must be open, there are some lights on inside, and Natasha wouldn’t waste his time like this. So, he tries again, puts a little bit more of his weight into it.

He’s about to give up, tell Natasha to pick up her own damn plant food when he hears a sharp voice from the other side.

“Stop being a bully and let him in. You’re being rude!”

The door opens with a whoosh and Bucky nearly eats it right then and there, barely managing to keep his feet under him. He stands up straight, bewildered, as he consciously unsticks his hand from the handle.

“Don’t mind Ianus, he can be a little stubborn.”

He jumps about a foot in the air and whirls around to look at the girl who’s managed to sneak up on him. She stands to the side of the doorway, smiling kindly at him, although she’s also clearly trying to hide the humor in her expression.

Bucky’s starting to feel a bit like a frazzled cat with all the unexpected things that have happened in the span of ten seconds. He catches the creaking sound of the door beginning to close and he only just steps out of the way as it swings shut so fast some of his hair flies into his face.

He turns back to the woman when she snorts, sees her eyes roll as she says, “What did I tell you? Stubborn.”

His face must look as stunned as he feels because her mouth drifts down into a contrite frown as she steps forward to pat his arm before pulling him further into the shop. And it _is_ a shop, he can see that now, though it’s unlike any he’s been in before.

There are plants _everywhere_, covering so much space on the floor in terracotta pots of all shapes and sizes. They crawl up the wall in vines or nestle comfortably in glass vases nailed into wooden slats. Hanging from the ceiling, which is unnaturally high for a little hole in the wall like this, are more vines and ferns and leafy things in wrought iron and patterned clay planters. The leaves on some are long enough to brush the top of his head as he tiptoes around the ones at his feet.

The woman, who still has his forearm grasped in one hand, walks between them like there is no chance she could step on them, as though they’d move if she asked. Honestly, Bucky thinks they might.

“You’re James, right?” She doesn’t pause to let him respond, so he’s pretty sure she knows the answer already. “I’m sorry for scaring you. I’d forgotten Natasha said you spook easily.”

Too busy scowling and muttering, “I do _not_ spook easily”, he doesn’t notice that she’s stopped until he bumps into the back of her. When she turns around, she’s got a mischievous smile that, up until now, he’s only seen on the two biggest pains in his ass.

“Sorry, of course you don’t. I’m Y/N, by the way.”

Even Bucky has enough decorum to feel a little bad for not asking her name, but Y/N doesn’t seem to mind as she turns to a chest of small drawers labeled with letters and symbols even he, in all his linguistic knowledge, doesn’t recognize. He takes a step back so he doesn’t intrude quite so egregiously on her personal space and looks around the shop while she’s busy.

Where there are not plants, there are little bronze figures, empty jars, and bottles on shelves, pouches piled together in a woven basket, and a pile of large canvas sacks in the corner between two large wooden armoires. There’s so much stuff that Bucky’s not sure he could notice it all if he spent years here.

It smells like jasmine and green, which, considering it’s ginkgo fruit season, and generally New York, is a feat in itself. He notices the dampness in the air with a shiver. It’s cold but not like A/C, more like if you walked through a low-hanging cloud.

Y/N is humming to herself when he turns back, pinching things from the drawers and dropping them into a red, velvet pouch. Catching him looking and smiling at him anyway, she holds up her first finger before placing it and her thumb in her mouth. A sharp, loud whistle cuts the air and a crow (it must be, even if it’s like no crow Bucky’s ever seen before) collects the pouch from her open palm.

The bird shoots off deeper into the shop, and Bucky momentarily contemplates how there is any more space at all.

She pats his arm again and takes him maybe ten steps to a hefty, wooden chest with an old-fashioned till stationed atop it. She begins to press down keys until it makes a loud ding and a drawer grinds out at her.

If it was anyone else other than this strange witch, and he’s sure now that she is a witch, he would laugh at the irritated frown that creases her face. Instead, he fights back a smile at her defeated sigh.

Y/N finishes writing something on a yellow legal pad and produces a canvas sack like the ones in the corner from below the counter. The sack looks like it would weigh fifty pounds or more, but she lifts it onto the worn wood with little more than a breath through her nose. On the bag, in big, gold letters is NAT with more scribbles in that language he doesn’t know.

Bag of what he presumes is orchid food within his grasp, Bucky feels a bit sad at the prospect of leaving this weird little store. He reaches for the orchid food with his right arm, looking up to send a small smile in thanks, only to catch her looking at him pensively.

This is it. This is the moment she senses all the evil he’s played a part in and bans him from her property for eternity, and whatever else witches do to their enemies.

She surprises him again, and he shouldn’t be shocked anymore. He hasn’t stopped being surprised since he set foot on the block.

“Yes! I think so!” she says, ducking below the counter so quickly she might’ve just disappeared into thin air.

As soon as Bucky peers over the edge of the counter between them, she pops back up with a tiny planter between her palms.

“Here you go! This yarrow could use some time with you.”

And suddenly there’s a planter in the hand outstretched to grab the bag meant for Natasha and Bucky can only blink.

“I-uh thank you? How should I pay you?”

“Oh! Yes, tell Natasha to keep her cat away from the orchids this time. There’s only so many times you can treat bites before they stop wanting to bloom at all.”

He blinks again.

“Ok…do you take cash?” He asks, even if he thinks questions are only going to make him more confused in the long run.

She smiles knowingly at him, “You’re all paid up.”

He takes a step back, and she nods encouragingly at him. Deceptively light bag and tiny plant in hand, Bucky makes his way to the entrance of the shop, turning back every ten steps or so to make sure she really doesn’t need the twenty dollars resting in his pocket.

There’s a huff and a shouted “Ianus! Let him _go_” as he steps up to the cursed door and it squeaks shrilly as it swings open.

He turns back one last time, tries to memorize as much as he can of this bizarre experience so he can tell Steve why they’re finally done being friends with Nat. His eyes slide to her form behind the counter again and she blinds him with another warm smile.

“Goodbye, James! I hope to see you again soon!”

The door flies shut, a clear dismissal with prejudice, and Bucky stands there for a few moments on the concrete steps outside, reminded rather quickly of the unseasonable heat.

He didn’t know Natasha had a cat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> дурак - idiot
> 
> Thank you again for reading! Any and all feedback is appreciated!


	2. Chapter 2

Natasha takes one step into the brownstone and zeroes in on the straggly little yarrow plant placed conspicuously on the coffee table. The smile stretching across her face is foreboding, one of the scariest Bucky’s ever seen, sharp and wolfish.

“You’ve met her then.” 

He rolls his eyes at her. Frankly, he’s getting real sick of being left out of the loop.

“Yes, I met your weird witch friend. Hold on, let me- your plant food is on the dining table.” He brings the bag into the living room and shoves it at her, ready for this interaction to be over already.

She huffs, tugging it from his hands. “And? What did you think?”

“I _think_ I’m tired of you never telling me what the hell is going on. Since when do you have a cat?” And he knows better than to fall for the fake pout at her mouth.

“I’ve only had Tennyson for three months, thank you very much. And he’s still shy around strangers so it’s not like I could introduce you,” she says, closely inspecting her nails like they both don’t know she’s avoiding eye contact.

“Tennyson? You named your cat _Tennyson_?”

Finally, after all this time, he has something to make fun of her for, make it so he’s not constantly the butt of the joke. Nat puts her hand down like it’s a great burden to her and levels a stare at him. He’s used to it by now or it would scare the shit out of him.

“No, Y/N did before she gave him to me,” she sniffs, “said she thinks we’re kindred spirits.”

She must see something in his face because the pinch between her brows softens, only a little bit, but it’s enough to know she’s not really mad at him. And takes pity on his colossal dumbass.

“She likes to nurture. Spirits, animals, plants,” keen eyes shift to the green elephant in the room still sitting innocuously on the wooden table before flicking up to him with a meaningful look, “…people.”

Bucky’s not proud of the way he bristles, the way his jaw clenches, but he’s not too fond of people manipulating him, and it feels an awful lot like Natasha has been playing puppeteer with his strings.

“Yeah, well, you’ve got your plant shit now,” he says, voice stiff with the effort to keep his teeth from grinding together, “unless you’ve got something else to con me into.”

For the first time in a long time, someone surprises Natasha Romanoff. Bucky can tell he’s done it because she doesn’t have time to shutter her face before hurt flashes across it; he’s not as proud as he thought he’d be.

She takes a step back, nodding her head like something finally slotted together in her mind. It stings, seeing her face slip into a blank mask, opaque enough that even he can’t see through it, but the anger’s too fresh to let anything past the wall of his teeth or the knot in his throat.

He doesn’t apologize. And although Nat shuts the front door behind her softly when she leaves, it still rattles through him like she’d slammed it. 

\----

The plant will not die.

Sure, Bucky wouldn’t actively try to kill it by dumping it in the garbage disposal, or setting it on fire, or running it over with his motorcycle, or any number of ideas he definitely _hasn’t_ thought about. But one would think, or at least Bucky Barnes would think, that six weeks without water would get rid of the scrubby little fuck already.

And yet, there it sits, sprouting leaves happily, like he’s not only been watering it but _feeding _it.

He knows it’s not Steve doing it, because Bucky bodily shoved him away from it the one time he caught him pouring a little ramekin of filtered water into the dirt, and the punk had stayed clear since. Natasha hasn’t been around since he yelled at her, no matter how many voicemails he leaves trying to apologize, so it can’t be her. Which means the plant is either fake or taunting him with its ability to survive and _thrive _even without the aid of basic things like water or proper sunlight and, based on the increasing number of feathery leaves and what might soon be flowers, it is decidedly not plastic.

The constant, maddening growth is why Bucky finds himself huffing and grumbling at a familiarly stubborn door near enough to the Christopher Street station, desperately trying to not sink into the silence the way his body wants to.

There isn’t a shout at the door to welcome him inside this time, just the slow creak of a begrudging hinge as the smallest sliver of the shop comes into view. It takes all his weight on his shoulder to pry it open enough that he can slip through before the door slams shut behind him. He doesn’t even pretend it was the early December wind.

The sound brings the witch from some twist of shadow Bucky hadn’t noticed before, and though her smile seems a little less wide than last time, it is still soft and kind. It punches some of the wild temper out of him.

“Hi, James, I was wondering when I’d see you again.”

And his irritation comes flooding back.

He marches over to the counter with the till and pulls the offending seedling from the bag resting against his hip, just barely keeping himself from shattering the planter as he slams it onto the wood between them.

“What the _fuck_ is going on with this plant?!” he seethes, and yeah some of his manners may leave him when he gets angry, but his ma wasn’t around to see it anyway.

Y/N eyes him and then the yarrow, clearly confused, because what normal person complains about their plant’s condition improving. She opens her mouth and shuts it again as his eyes narrow and he gives up trying to wait her out.

“The thing won’t die!” The outburst startles her, that’s clear, but there’s also a new shade of amusement in the curve of her mouth that only serves to piss him off more. “It hasn’t been watered in six weeks and short of killing it with my bare hands-”

His mouth clicks shut as disappointment draws her brows down in an expression Bucky is very familiar with, just on a very different, very Steve face.

“It won’t die because it likes you…and because you don’t really want it to,” she says, voice gentle, yarrow cupped between her palms like she’s cradling a child. He watches her stroke the leaves, entranced by the way they seem to curl around her finger. It is only when the movement stops that he realizes she’s looking at him, through him.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

Even as the words leave his mouth, he knows it is a lie. He’d felt it in his gut as soon as he’d noticed it was still growing despite the neglect, a familiar fondness for a little thing that wouldn’t give up. Y/N smiles at him anyway.

“If you don’t want to keep it anymore, that’s ok, I can take it back, but it won’t die with so much of your attention,” and her soothing lilt makes the fight drain out of him like she’d wringed him out with her hands. She’s laughing at him again, he can tell. Of course Nat’s witch would laugh at him as much as she does.

Bucky winces as he remembers Natasha, how he was cruel to her when she only wanted to help.

The yarrow plant comes sliding over the counter towards him, urged on by two of the witch’s fingers. He sets his hand on the worn wood, lets her hand cover his as the pot shifts into his space. Eventually, he manages to meet her eyes again.

“It wouldn’t hurt to let a little sunlight in every once in a while.”

He is well aware that they are no longer talking about the plant.

The nod he gives is jerky, mechanical in a way that tells tales of how tired he is. She squeezes his hand before letting him go, blowing a kiss at his yarrow as he carefully packs it back into his bag.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and he means it.

When he goes to leave the shop, he finds that the door opens easily.

\----

Bucky waits outside yet another closed door. He’s starting to think it might be a metaphor for something, his inability to let others in, perhaps. He already knocked twice and doesn’t want to again; she would come if she wanted.

While this door does not open on its own, he still fidgets nervously under the cool gaze that sweeps over him as it is pulled open, can only hope Natasha doesn’t find him lacking. He can see the moment she notices the tupperware in his hands.

“[пряники](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21133874/chapters/50423369)?” she asks, and at his nod, steps aside to let him in, though her body language does not ease.

He offers her the container of cookies both because they are for her and because there’s no way he could eat even one when his insides are tied up in complex knots. Bucky lets out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding when she accepts it and leads him to sit on a puffy blue sofa.

He opens his mouth to speak but freezes when she holds up an index finger. The finger stays up while she opens the tupperware and pulls a cookie from it, taking a bite and chewing slowly. After the bite is swallowed, she deliberates for a moment, deciding whether the offer is worthy of her time. It must satisfy her enough because she looks him right in the eyes and arches a single eyebrow. 

Bucky doesn’t waste time being surly or embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” and the other perfectly manicured brow raises to meet its sister. “You were only trying to help me, and I was a complete asshole.”

Natasha stares him down a little longer, and when he shifts again in his seat, her patented smirk crawls across her lips, and Bucky knows everything’s alright between them again.

“Y/N was worried about you, told me you tried to kill your yarrow.”

Heat rises to his cheeks even as he tries to defend himself; he knows when he’s caught out.

“I didn’t try to _kill_ it,” he mumbles, “I just didn’t expect it to keep living if I ignored it.”

The laugh that bursts from her chest is clear and loud, different from the husky one he’s familiar with when she laughs at him. This is the one she reserves for when he’s truly said something funny, which only makes him feel more embarrassed. It’s not supposed to be funny.

Bucky is saved from having to come up with a better excuse by an orange, Himalayan cat that weaves itself between his legs. He reaches down, letting his hand be sniffed at by a bright pink nose, even if the whiskers tickle against the tips of his fingers. They must reach an accord because the cat, _Tennyson_ he recalls, rubs his face up against it until Bucky pulls away.

“She likes you, you know,” Nat says, after a minute or two has passed. He’d nearly forgotten what they were talking about. “Otherwise, she would’ve snatched that plant out of your hand as soon as you set foot in her shop the second time, if she would’ve given it to you at all.”

The flush that had finally begun to recede flares again at the memory of the strange Village witch that seems to know his guts like she’d seen them spilling out of him.

“Yeah, well…I might have judged her too quickly.” He doesn’t know what about that answer pleases Nat, but she relaxes against her seat like he’s finally cleared some unseen landmine in their friendship. 

Later, when Bucky returns home to find his yarrow has nearly doubled in size, he can’t muster up any shock. Clearly something he doesn’t understand ties it to him, and him to Y/N. But, when all his googling and research on the growing plants in pots tells him that he’ll have to repot it in a bigger planter or risk root binding, he decides it can’t hurt to take another trip to Manhattan tomorrow for some gardening advice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> пряники - priyaniki, a type of spice cookie (they're really good trust me lol)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! All feedback is appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for the wait. Sometimes life just gets in the way, you know? But, I think you all will be happy with the amount of our dear witch friend in this chapter! Hope you enjoy <3

When he opens his eyes, the first thing he notices is the feeling of something flying around inside his head, bouncing from one side of his skull to the other as it runs into the wall of bone over and over. It doesn’t hurt as much as it could, as much as it has in the past, but the little twinges are enough of a nuisance that he’d rather just shut his eyes and be done with the day before it starts. Instead, Bucky sits up, throws his legs over the edge of the bed, and presses one foot and then the other into a pair of leather and wool slippers.

They’d been a joke at first, a “welcome to the 21st century, old man” gift from Clint, but became a beloved part of his morning routine after a couple months of spitefully wearing them. Having experienced that luxury, he can’t stand cold floors on his bare feet anymore, and every inch of he and Steve’s pre-civil war brownstone is hardwood or tile.

He shuffles into the kitchen, and thank god Steve knows him as well as he does, because he doesn’t make a peep until a mug of coffee is warming up Bucky’s insides.

Once half the liquid in the pot is gone, Steve chances a glance at Bucky before giving him a sympathetic smile as he asks, “Headache again?”

It’s nice he never has to tell Steve what’s going on, even if he is working on communicating with his therapist. It’s a relief to be understood anyway, that someone knows his aches and pains based off the hitch in his jaw. He has to give a little fight though, or it’ll make poor worrywart Steve nervous.

“Yeah, but how would you know, asshole?” It’s worth the playacting to see Steve’s expression lighten a little.

“Maybe it’s because you look like a bedraggled raccoon, dumbass.”

And well, Bucky’s gotta give him that; he looks like Rocket on his worst day.

\----

It turns out today might be a pretty bad day all the way through, head aching, every light just this side of too bright for his eyes, and the well-known pain starting up in his left shoulder and spreading down into his spine. He wants to crawl back into bed. With a strength of will he wasn’t sure he had, he pulls on every last bit of his resolve, laces his boots, and takes his yarrow into Manhattan.

Exactly 37 minutes and a very brisk walk later, he’s watching a wide-eyed look of surprise melt into a pleased smile that leaves him more than a little breathless. 

“Hi, James. You’re here early. I wasn’t expecting you until next week,” Y/N says, amused by Bucky’s nervousness, “but you’re always surprising me.”

He can feel the redness creeping across his face, up to his hairline.

“I-uh yeah”, he clears his throat, “I’m pretty good at surprises.”

_Idiot._

Suddenly, her eyebrows draw down, forcing that little crease between them that Bucky is so sick of putting on her face. Between one blink and the next she’s stood right in front him, so close he would barely have to reach out to touch her. He tries to shake that thought loose before it can stick.

Y/N peers up at him, “Are you ok?” And god she’s pretty.

He doesn’t get the chance to respond because she’s reaching for his face. Nearly an inch away from his skin the hands stop abruptly as though, if the dawning horror in her eyes is anything to go by, she realizes exactly what she was about to do.

Before she can pull away, he hums a reassurance of “it’s ok”, and he’s rewarded with soft fingertips traveling up to his temples. Cool against his skin, they press there for a moment, rubbing counterclockwise circles into what must be his very soul.

He could stay right here for the rest of his life and never want for anything else.

The motions stop, and Bucky can’t keep the bereft sound from slipping through his teeth. She shushes him, and, when he looks down, her tongue pokes out of one side of her mouth in concentration. Normally it would make him laugh, but his body has suddenly decided to simulate the feeling of his stomach falling out of his ass. He closes his eyes in hopes it’ll stop his heart from beating against his ribcage so hard.

Hands moving to cup his face and thumbs tracing over his eyelids, Y/N makes a little _aha!_ sound like she’s solved a difficult puzzle. The pads of her thumbs push into the start of his eyebrows and the pressure behind his eyes builds until it pops, no trace of headache left.

Bucky could cry.

She brushes her thumbs over the length of his eyebrows and pulls away. It leaves him with a sense of emptiness, and he has to steel himself to keep from swaying back towards the touch. He opens his eyes and is met with the sight of a satisfied witch. He’s in big trouble, he knows, but that sounds like a problem for the future, as he stands there staring with what is surely a dopey grin.

“And here I was thinking you only did plants,” he says, totally unaware his mouth was moving until the words are in the air.

Her laugh echoes in a way it shouldn’t in a building this size, but Bucky’s all the more pleased for it, letting himself be enveloped in the sound. In a moment of clarity, he finally notices just how little space lies between them, heart picking up again and sweat spreading over the palm of his hand. Before he can wonder if he should back up, should let a little air into the bubble they’ve managed to create, Y/N takes metal digits in hers, leading him to one of the old, wooden armoires standing against the back wall.

This visit is certainly turning out differently from the last two.

She leans in, ever closer, to whisper conspiratorially, “I don’t take many people back here,” and knocks three times on the side of the armoire. It should be a superstition, a ritual before she pulls the door open, but she only clasps his hand again in both of hers and waits for the door to spring open on its own. The eager tugging of his arm forces him to stoop down to walk through the armoire.

Bucky is gobsmacked. If the rest of the shop is impressive, there isn’t a word for the awe the back room evokes. Where there are many plants in the front of the shop, it is a jungle behind the armoire. Instead of hanging plants and ferns on the walls, huge leafy plants in giant planters take up almost all of the space from floor to ceiling. He doesn’t know the names of them, though he feels he should, and resolves to ask the excited witch still tugging him along when he gets the chance.

They stop in the middle of the room, stood almost perfectly centered in a big stone circle, flanked by green leaves that reach for them. She gives him a moment to look around, take in the worktables at the back, the hanging lights that aren’t wired to anything electrical, and finally, her beaming up at him. Y/N squeezes his hand again and lets go, and Bucky’d forgotten she was holding it until it was over.

“James, did you-” she begins to ask, interrupted by the words that tumble from Bucky’s lips unbidden.

  
“Call me Bucky…please.” _A rude idiot, apparently._

Silence greets him and he forces his gaze from his feet to her face. _God_, her face. With eyes wide and mouth parted like it is, she looks like she’s just been given a gift, looks at _Bucky _like that. The apology dies on his lips and he has to lock his knees to keep them from wobbling like the jelly they’ve suddenly turned into.

Then, as if she hadn’t nearly wiped him out already, a wide grin spreads from cheek to cheek, slow like a sunrise and just as blinding.

When she speaks, it shakes him out of his stupor, embarrassed wonderings of just how long he was staring flitting through his head.

“Bucky, did you bring your plantling?”

While his movements are robotic, jerky little motions, he manages to nod and pull the yarrow out unharmed from his satchel, presents it like a child at show and tell. He doesn’t think about how much he wants to impress her with the not-as-little plant’s improvement. 

Y/N gives a surprised hum and cups the plant between her palms, the same as she’d done the last time, eyelids slipping shut in concentration. He notices now, not sure if he just missed it before, the way her lips form silent words. He can’t make out what they are, but he doesn’t mind really, enjoys the not knowing even.

Her eyes flick open and he can tell she’s pleased with her discovery, though the wry curve of her lip spells trouble for him.

“I said you would be good for each other, didn’t I?” And the words are playful, but her tone is soft, a reassurance that he’s done right by her gift to him, by her. Stepping around him, she sends a glance over her shoulder, “C’mon, we can set it up with a new home before it cracks this one open.”

Bucky follows her to the worktable, setting the terracotta pot down in the space cleared there. Suddenly, the weight on his shoulder is gone and he turns his head to find Y/N setting his satchel on the little shelf underneath the tabletop.

She huffs and dusts her hands off, “Let’s get started.”

Apparently, there is a lot to know about gardening. How to break up roots gently, how to keep from shocking a plant during repotting, when to water it, when to feed it, etc. All of it swims around his head, trying to memorize the information so he can put it to good use later. And maybe impress a certain witch, if he’s lucky.

Y/N is so gentle with him, helping him pull the plant out of the dirt and separate the tender little roots. When he gets his hands into the potting soil, calm washes over in a wave, and all the internal buzzing that tells him to stay on his toes and the tension he carries in his back drain through him.

Even though he knows little about looking after plants, it’s easy to fall into the rhythm, like a deep, forgotten instinct suddenly taking over. Bucky doesn’t have to check with Y/N about how deep to set it in the pot, or how much gap there should be between stem and dirt, he just knows. A bone deep _knowing_.

When the yarrow sits comfortably in a brand new, much larger pot, he rocks back onto his heels, proud of his work and yet unhappy to be done. He stands a moment, still as stone. If he doesn’t call attention to it, perhaps she’ll forget he’s there and inadvertently let him stay a bit longer.

No such luck, it seems.

Y/N leans over, her hand resting at the center of his spine, warmth spreading from where they touch. He’s not sure if it’s on purpose, but Bucky’s grateful all the same. She inspects the plant and turns that megawatt smile on him yet again. One would think he’d be used to it by now.

“It’s perfect! It shouldn’t need a new pot for a while. I wouldn’t expect too many more growth spurts like this, now that you’re properly acquainted.” She winks at him, and his lungs have forgotten how to inflate. “Do you want to see-”

She straightens abruptly, turns her ear as though listening to something far away, but Bucky, super-soldier hearing and all, can’t hear anything. Obviously distracted, her hand leaves his back, and he notices the loss, as she starts to walk backwards.

“Stay here. I’ll be right back after I help this customer. Gall will keep you company,” she says, before abruptly stepping through the armoire. There one moment, gone the next.

Gall, it turns out, is the same crowravencreature from his first trip to see Y/N, and Bucky learns it is much more unsettling to have the bird’s full attention trained on him. Unblinking eyes that see too much.

Desperate to avoid that unwavering gaze, he busies himself looking around the room, and his attention snags on a plant much like the rest of them, big and leafy, but this one seems different, sadder, though he’s not sure how he knows it. Normally sure feet take tentative steps towards it, casting more than a few wary glances over his shoulder to make sure Gall doesn’t have any objections, then settles into a squat next to the big stone planter.

“Hey pal, what’s got you so glum?” he murmurs, a single finger stroking up the seam of a wide, waxy leaf. “Just need a little attention is all, huh.”

It’s soothing, being still and talking to the plant, a stream of consciousness that feels different than talking to his therapist or just himself. There is the sensation of being listened to but not the fear of judgement that often haunts him, so the words come pouring out of him. He’s not spouting any secrets, mostly because he’s not sure the plant would want to hear his, but he freely voices idle thoughts that would normally get swept aside.

“I _knew _I could sense witch blood in you.”

Bucky blinks out of his trance, remarkably unstartled by the sudden appearance of the witch knelt at his side. When his sight focuses again, the plant is visibly greener. Y/N looks positively giddy.

“It was faint, so I thought maybe a great-great-grandparent, but Natasha was so adamant that you weren’t, so I just chalked it up as a fluke. But here you are! A bloodborne witch!”

With truly no idea what’s going on, all he can do is stare at her as she continues talking.

“Of course, you don’t _have_ to be descended from an established bloodline to be a witch, most aren’t, but you’ve taken to green magic so quickly that it makes sense that you are. This is so exciting! I can’t wait to rub it in Nat’s-”, her voice peters out as she takes in his blank expression. Silence stretches between them for a moment and he breathes in deep through his nose.

“I really have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, trying to keep his tone kind even if he’s confused as all fuck.

Sure, it only takes a bit to explain that Y/N thinks he, Bucky Barnes, is a witch, or at least a descendant of one. And yeah, there’s the evidence of the yarrow shooting up overnight and the suddenly perky plant right in front of him, but it’s not so easy to wrap his head around the idea. It makes sense to him that Y/N is a witch, everything she does seems otherworldly to him, and it’s not just because he’s a bit sweet on her. She’s weird, the good kind obviously, but weird, nonetheless.

But, if he takes even a second to think about it, his life has definitely not been normal either. Go figure.

“So, I’m a witch?” It’s a question, even if she’s spent a whole five minutes telling him she thinks exactly that. She rolls her eyes, but it’s fond in a way that make Bucky’s cheeks heat despite being in the middle of self-discovery.

“I mean, not in practice, no, but you could be! A _really_ good one, too. If you wanted to be, of course.” She tacks on the last bit in a hurry, like she worries she’s pressuring him. And he’s not gonna let that stand.

He smiles real easy around her, he’s finding, hard not to with all that joy radiating at him all the time. So, he lets a grin split his face, hopes it comes across as soft as he feels and says, “And if I want to?”

Y/N’s squeal is ear-splitting but Bucky’s only more enamored as she grips the tops of his arms and squeezes.

“We are going to have so much fun, you and I.”

\----

He gets home from the gym a couple days later, sweaty and already mentally in a hot shower when Steve calls from the couch.

He pulls his earbuds out and stands behind the leather back of the sofa, arms crossed, because he can tell from Steve’s face he’s gonna get shit for something. The dumbass has got a smirk the size of Texas on and Bucky would much rather be showering than hearing lip from Steve Rogers.

“Your witch called. Said you should come by for lessons tomorrow morning,” and Bucky does not like the eyebrow quirk at the word lessons at all. “Also, make sure you’re, and I quote, ‘bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.’”

Steve is so smug it could make a grown man sick, but Bucky knows him and his nonsense too well to let it affect him. He’s already halfway to his bedroom as he shouts, “Fuck you, Rogers!” and chuckles to himself when he hears the idiot laughing.

And if he’s a little pink with a smile he can’t seem to get rid of, it’s only because he likes the sound of it.

His witch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That eyebrow trick is how I get rid of like 90% of my headaches. It doesn't always work but it's worth a try. 
> 
> In case you wanna look up a picture, the plant I envisioned Bucky talking to is a rubber tree ficus, because they are literally so sweet and easy to take care of, and Bucky's first **witchy** experience should be with an easy-going plant. 
> 
> Anyway, I really hope you guys liked this chapter! All feedback is appreciated.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for such a long wait. This chapter fought me hard, and I rewrote it like five times. This is the best one yet, but I'm still not happy with it. I figure it's better to post it and just stop obsessing over it.
> 
> I really hope you all like it, and, as always, I appreciate all feedback. 
> 
> <3

Even in the first few “lessons”, although his teacher insists she’s not an expert in all things witchy, Bucky learns many, many things. He learns there’s no proper way to practice, that everyone casts differently. Learns that witchcraft can be religious or secular, involve spirits or not. Perhaps most importantly, he learns to love the craft. 

He sits on a wooden stool pulled up to the worktable in the back room, practicing bundling mugwort, thyme, and cedar and wrapping them with twine. Y/N, sat on the floor with her back against the leg of the table closest to him, head leaning on his knee, braids tender little dill sprigs and ties the ends with a thin, deep blue ribbon. While reciting stories and lessons learned from her days as a witchling, the cadence of her voice changes. It goes soft and rhythmic and Bucky can only focus on his hands and her words.

Twining the thread around messily woven herbs becomes secondary to the weight of her head against him and the meandering way she retells the story of her first Solstice. He feels her laugh more than hears it as she gets to the part about accidentally growing mistletoe on everyone’s doorways during an attempt to fortify a christmas cactus. When shared chuckles give way to comfortable silence, a soft sigh escapes her, tying off the last braid. 

Done with the dill, she gets to her feet and Bucky misses the closeness. The basket she sets on the table is full of so many perfect little braids that he’s embarrassed by the ten sad, misshapen bundles stacked in front of him. She stays next to him, waits and watches while he finishes one more, pulling the fragrant bunch from his hand once completed. It is agony, seeing her inspect his work, waiting for disappointment to mar her pretty face or for mocking laughter. Y/N would never mock him, but Bucky’s afraid, anyway. 

The relief, when that beaming smile stretches her lips, however, is glorious. 

“This one is perfect! I said it just takes some practice, didn’t I?” Y/N says, smile warm and knowing, because she sees through him too easily. And Bucky is _terrible_ at hiding from her. 

“Yeah, I’m _real_ good at this,” he says, sarcastic and roughly running a hand through already tangled hair. If he keeps looking at that face, he’s gonna do something rash. “Now you have a single cleansing bundle worth selling.” 

A quiet _tsk_ is all he gets for his worry, and he turns, incredulous, to watch nimble fingers comb through the dill basket.

“Are you trying to tell me you’d sell these? Nobody with any taste would buy these ugly lumps.” Such a botched attempt at humor does little to hide his discouragement. You’d think a master spy would be more skilled at disguise. 

The _tsk_ comes again and now Bucky can recognize the noise for what it is. The sound is different coming from Y/N and not Nat, but the meaning is the same. He’s being an idiot. Only one of them is kind enough to give him an explanation. 

“I’m not gonna sell _any_ of them,” and her tone’s so matter-of-fact that the crushed feeling in his gut barely registers. “You made these, are learning to make them, I’m not trying to profit off of teaching you.”

_Oh_. Yeah, that makes more sense than whatever dumbass idea his brain had come up with. 

“Ok, but what am I gonna do with ten bundles of cedar and mugwort?” Perhaps his tone is a bit snarky, but… that is a lot of smoke cleansing. 

Genuine or not, the question earns him an eye-roll, though there’s no heat in it. And it’s nice that, even during an argument, Bucky doesn’t have an anxiety pit in his stomach over fucking up something irrevocably. Things are easy even when they shouldn’t be. 

Finally, looking away from the green braids and meeting his gaze, an open face and relaxed body language confirm she isn’t mad. But her expression goes serious, like the point of the conversation is significant. 

“I don’t know, Bucky, they’re your herbs. Burn them, store them, give them away. It’s not my place to decide what you want.” She sighs, but the last bit is kinder, a reminder she’s just trying to guide him. Y/N wants to be friends, not his employer.

Still, he’s always been a shit. 

“And if I wanted to give all of my bundles to you?”

Her eyes narrow and he doesn’t even try to keep the smirk off his face. 

“That’s cheating and you know it.” 

Bucky laughs, which only helps to cover up the way he definitely isn’t fawning over the sweet scrunch of her nose. “Ok, ok, just one? Please?” 

Exasperation colors her words, but he knows he’s successfully broken her down when she huffs, “Fine. Just one, but I get to pick.”

Too busy being smug about how that’s just fine with him, because he already wanted to give her the prettiest one, Bucky only realizes her intentions _after_ she picks the first bundle. The ugliest one. 

Red stain crawls up his face in a hot flash of embarrassment and he tries to grab at the messy lump in her hand. Considering his reflexes, it’s a feat she escapes his grasp. Mugwort cradled against her sternum, she’s all too pleased with having tricked him. 

“Y/N,” he whines, truly and mortifyingly whines. _Great_. 

“Uh-uh, you said I could pick, and this one is my favorite.” He wants to fight her on it, but he knows his witch is stubborn, like everyone else in his life. And, if she wants the worst one, she can have it. She can have any- 

Before it can stir up any trouble, he dismisses that particular thought with prejudice. 

Defeat must color his posture because she tucks the bundle in an apron pocket and pats soothingly at him, rubbing counterclockwise circles on his spine at his wincing stretch. He’ll never get used to the relief of easing pain, or that she knows to focus more on the left side, where the arm pulls more. 

Lost in the motion, Y/N continues her ministrations as she goes back to sorting the basket.

“What are the dill braids for? Love spells?” he asks, trying to remember herb correspondences he learned the week before. 

“No, these are for protection. I don’t do love spells. Don’t practice them, and I won’t sell raw ingredients to anyone looking for one.” 

It’s a hard rule, and Bucky respects that, but he’s curious.

“Why?” _A little blunt there, pal._

“Too messy. They never turn out right, and there’s usually a reason the love hasn’t worked out already.” It makes sense, and he’s about to say so when she finishes, “and I don’t want to mess around with others’ free will.” 

The statement is innocuous, and usually neither would even notice it, but her eyes go wide and the hand on his back stutters to an abrupt stop. Blood turns to ice in his veins.

Up to this point, that topic, _him_, the Soldier, hasn’t come up, and when Bucky’s in the shop, he forgets there’s something to talk about. Outside the company of a few very close friends, and Y/N, it seems, Bucky is constantly aware of himself, of who he is, who he was. He tracks eyes on him at all times, carefully draws attention away from the arm when possible, and hides it when not. It’s never-ending, this guilt that demands an apology for who… what he is. 

Suddenly, Bucky’s not welcome in this sanctuary anymore, and if the anxious fog would clear, he’d realize that’s not the case, that nothing changed. But in an inescapable moment, he _believes _something’s changed, like an intruder disturbing something sacred. The Winter Soldier shouldn’t be here, doesn’t belong here. 

Slipping off the stool in a blink and gathering his few belongings together, he checks for his MetroCard. Then bolts. 

Through the armoire and halfway across the front of the shop by the time she catches up, he stops dead in his tracks at the panicky shout of his name. He has to go, but doesn’t want her to misunderstand, can’t risk hurting her. So he turns, rigid because every instinct is screaming _go get out_ in echoes and rounds that are nearly deafening. 

Y/N stands six feet away, hands wringing, and, considering how close they were less than five minutes ago, the distance makes him _ache_. His witch must notice too because she takes a half-step forward before visibly steeling herself against the urge. 

“_Bucky,_” she pleads, plaintive tone catching at his insides. The horrifying revelation that he’d made her so upset burns like acid at the back of his throat. “I didn’t mean-”

“No,” and he gentles his voice at the wobble of her bottom lip, “No, you didn’t do anything, sugar. I just can’t-” He swallows around a dry throat, “I’m not… prepared for this conversation. Just give me a little time.” 

Desperate to make it clear this is an internal struggle, he tries so hard to be careful of the fragile moment. Their friendship is too important and their dynamic too comfortable, and the situation is reminiscent of defusing a bomb. The comparison brings no comfort, but life experiences are what they are.

Y/N must understand because part of the tension holding her taut dissipates, though her continued discomfort is clear in her fidgeting hands. “D’you want your herb bundles?” 

She tries for a smile, but only manages a pained grimace and Bucky’s heart thumps painfully in response.

“I’ll get ‘em next time. I’m sure you and Gall can take care of ‘em for me.” Subtlety escapes him, but an obvious olive branch is better than none. 

The second attempt at a smile is genuine, if a bit watery, and it helps to clear some of the pressing sorrow in the air between them. Bucky’ll come back, as if he could stay away. 

For a moment, Y/N looks like she might close the distance, take his hand in hers as he’s so used to. Part of him, the greedy part desperate to suck up every drop of her presence, wants her to. Instead, she lifts her head and says, so quietly that only his super-soldier hearing lets him pick up the words, “Bye, Bucky.”

This was his idea; he knows, _god_ does he know that. Even so, it hurts to leave her and the shop. Despite that hurt, he knows this is a responsible decision, to take necessary time to collect his thoughts. Maybe Steve will be proud. 

The door (or door spirit, he never quite found out), Ianus, despite their disagreements in the past, doesn’t shut as soon as he leaves. So, Bucky gets a moment to look back, sees her hand lift in a little wave before beginning the miserable return journey to Brooklyn. 

\--—

Steve is not proud. 

He and Nat believe, rather vocally, that Bucky is the highest form of dumbass. This one time, Bucky’s inclined to agree with the sentiment because, although spending four days without seeing a certain unnamed witch isn’t new, knowing he can’t go see her is enough to bring on a patented Barnes Gloom. 

His suffering does not garner sympathy from his asshole best friends. Or Sam. 

As all three sit in his living room laughing and eating _his _pringles, he has to gather the courage to leave the bedroom and face them. Sure, his hair is dirty, and he barely leaves the bed except to smear peanut butter on toast, but it’s his house too, damn it. 

At the click of the door handle, six highly observant eyes zero in, dragging up and down to assess damage. The desire to retreat is overwhelming, but he’s gotta deal with their judgment sometime.

Sam speaks first.

“You look like shit, Barnes.” 

While the words are harsh, Sam doesn’t mask his concern, and Bucky can tell by the sharp frown that he is _very_ concerned. 

“Yeah, well, it’s his fault,” says Steve, good, kind, supposed to be his fucking best friend, Steve. Natasha nods sagely at his side, feet propped up in his denim-clad lap. 

They sit in silence for nearly a full minute, until the loud, unmistakable sound of a Pringle being eaten breaks the tension. 

“Those are my pringles,” he mumbles, and it’s pathetic really that he can’t even yell at his friends anymore. 

Sam waves the cylinder in the air, familiar shit-eating grin stretching his mouth, “Well, come eat some with us then.” 

Bucky wants to hide away for eternity, but he paid for those dammit, and he’s gonna eat at least one, so he sits on the floor by Sam’s legs and reaches wordlessly for the can. All three pairs of eyes watch as he chews, waiting for him to break. 

It doesn’t take long. 

Under all that unwavering attention, he deflates, and bottled-up words and emotions come pouring out like a tsunami. 

“I’m scared,” he begins, pausing for mockery. When there is none, he continues, “Every part of my life revolves around the Soldier: who I am, who my friends are, how strangers see me.” He sends a pleading look at Steve, whose mouth has opened to start what would surely be a lecture on Bucky’s worth outside of Hydra. “I know I’m not that person, but it’s suffocating anyway… to have that shadow follow me everywhere.” 

Only brave enough to make eye contact with Steve for a second, who watches with a pensive expression but smiles encouragingly, his eyes flick back down to his fingers drawing patterns on the rug. 

“Until recently, Y/N was outside that. She never looked at me weird or stared at the arm, and it felt so _freeing_ to have someone who didn’t know or… didn’t care to know. And it’s cowardly, but I couldn’t lose that, so I ran.” 

The quiet that follows is stifling. 

“You’re an idiot.” 

Bucky forces himself to keep his head up, but he shouldn’t have worried, because only sympathy meets him. Nat even looks a little fond, albeit the exasperated kind. 

At Steve’s not-so-subtle pinch to her ankle, she amends the statement, “You’re not an idiot for feeling that way. _Obviously._” She spares a glare at the blonde across the couch. “But you didn’t give her a chance to prove you wrong.” 

Sam pipes up from behind, “Seems like all you’re doing by staying away is torturing the both of you.” 

Yeah, Bucky’s an idiot. He flops backward with a groan, ignoring the eye rolls at the dramatics. “She probably wouldn’t even want to see me anymore,” he says, words muffled by the hands covering his face. 

“She misses you, trust me. I know for a fact she’s been planting out of season.” 

He peeks at her between his fingers, “Are you sure she doesn’t hate me?”

Steve, despite his prodding of Natasha earlier, is the least kind of the three. “Even if she does, is it any worse than the wallowing you’ve been doing over a hypothetical?” 

Bucky huffs, “I guess you’re right.”   
  


\----  
  


Once the others have left, and Steve gives him a last, encouraging thumbs up before turning in, Bucky sits on his bed with phone in hand. 

He stares at the contact on his screen for far too long, psyching himself out and then up repeatedly. Finally, with a shaky breath, he hits call.

It’s bad (?) luck that it doesn’t go to voicemail, and the cheery voice on the other end saying, “This is Y/N, how can I help you?” strikes him mute.

Ten seconds of absolute stillness go by before there’s a “Hello?”. Another ten and- 

“Bucky?”

Stuttering and loud, he knows the exhale gives him away, so he scrambles to say something before she hangs up. “Uh, hi! This is- yeah, it’s Bucky. I was hop-” he inhales harshly through his nose to steel himself. “Could I come visit? Tomorrow?”

He can’t place the emotion in her voice when she says, “You’re always welcome here,” but it makes his eyes sting and his heart hammer hard into the surrounding ribs.

“Ok, great. That’s great. I mean- that’s good.” Her chuckle, even dampened and tinny through the phone speaker, sounds like absolution. “Wait, before you hang up, I- I wanna explain.”

“You don’t have to.”

And, fuck, wouldn’t it be nice to just _not?_

“No, I want to. It’s just… easier over the phone like this.” His hands are sweating.

She must nod her head, even though he can’t see it, because after several heart-wrenching moments of quiet, she makes a startled sound of assent.

“Many people think they already know me. Because of what they’ve seen on the news, or read in their history books, but I’m not… that, or at least I don’t _want_ to be that. And I invented this fantasy that you had no idea who I was, and you only know _me_. So, when I realized you know exactly who I am to everyone else, I got… scared.”

“Oh, Bucky,” Y/N says, voice so tender the tears collecting behind his eyes finally spill over the edge and swallowing around the lump in his throat seems impossible.

“It wasn’t fair to you, to just take off like that, not when it hurt you. So… I’m sorry, for not giving you the benefit of the doubt.” He sighs, more anxious despite the relief of getting the apology out.

Now, Bucky’s heart is in her hands.

She’s crying too, based on the wobble in her voice as she says, “I’m sorry, too.” The protesting noise barely escapes before she shushes him, “I _am _sorry because I made you uncomfortable, and I never want to do that. Ever.”

_God_, she’s so good.

They sit there, sniffling into each other’s ear, until, finally, Bucky can say goodbye. “I’ll see ya tomorrow, yeah?” he asks, confirming even as he dreads a change of her mind.

“Mhm, bright and early. Be sure to-”

“Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I got it, sugar.” _Cool it. She’s only just agreed to meet again._ Warm and loud, she laughs and warmth spreads through Bucky from head to toe.

“Bye, Bucky.”

\----

After a grueling commute featuring loud college students and Bucky’s impatient staring at the clock on his phone, he finally steps into the shop, with only a little coaxing of the stubborn door. There isn’t a bell, but Y/N turns around from the pot she’s fiddling with as if an alarm had blared through the room.

The plant in question is a sunflower, noticeable because it blooms when their meet eyes. Vibrant yellow petals unfurl just like the sunshine smile stretching across her mouth, and the sight is fucking breathtaking.

His beautiful little witch is so thrilled to see him. It nearly breaks his heart he’s so goddamn happy.

Before Bucky even realizes he’s crossed the room, he has her wrapped up in a hug so tight it hurts. She pulls away to cradle his face in her palms and presses kisses all over his forehead, cheeks, eyes, and repeats, sweet and tentative. His heart thrashes into an unsteady beat.

Worried he’s crossed a line, Bucky tries to take a step back, only to stop at the tugging on his right hand, where Y/N brushes her lips against the pads of his fingers.

“I missed you,” she says, and how could he resist falling back into her.

Watching the space between them diminish inch by inch, he traces the side of her face with his metal knuckles, “Missed you, too.” 

It is blinding, to be on the other side of such a beaming smile, but he feels a lot like the sunflower, basking in her glow.

Her expression turns wry.

“Well, those herbs won’t bundle themselves.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading!
> 
> P.S. I know communication is kinda limited here, so if you want to talk to me without it being directly related to this work, head over to @vibraniumwitch on tumblr!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to apologize for such a long gap between chapters and being AWOL on tumblr. Holidays, illness, and then just the blues got to me and I didn't sit down to see this chapter through. 
> 
> This chapter is both inspired by and dedicated to Rhi. Though she may not realize, her love for this story kept me from giving up entirely. So thank you, Rhi.
> 
> Additionally, thank you all so much for the wonderful comments on the last chapter, and chapters previous. I haven't responded to them all, but trust me when I say they were incredibly motivating.
> 
> I really hope you enjoy.

Since the day he walked back into the shop and hugged his witch so tight he worried about breaking her, Bucky dreams of sunflowers. Weeks go by, and he could swear he feels vibrant petals just out of reach when sleep finally leaves him. It’s odd, to wake up blinking golden yellow out of his eyes and tasting summer wind on his tongue, only to walk out into a blisteringly cold New York winter. But they are a blessed reprieve from the other dreams he has learned to expect.

The sunflower that sparks these dreams still blooms brightly in Y/N’s shop, and he makes sure to stroke a leaf or two with tender affection as a thank you for bringing him so much peace. Although, it seems unfair not to recognize a certain witch’s efforts. The same witch that bloomed at his return to her, he likes to think.

So, when he walks into the shop, the eighth time in so many days, he pays homage to the miraculous little sunflower and steps through the wardrobe. Y/N kneels on a mat on the stone floor, coaxing bright green aloes to root in their new pots. He’s silent, as he always is, but she doesn’t even look up before greeting him. She just knows, every time, even when he doesn’t make purposeful noise to alert her.

“Hi, Bucky, how was the train?” she asks, tongue poking out as she fiddles with a runt of an aloe pup refusing to settle.

He sighs, because it’s kind of embarrassing to admit, but forges on anyway.

“Some pigeons followed me through the station again, but they didn’t get on the train this time.”

It’d been happening for a few days, any animal he comes into contact with, except for Gall and Tennyson, crowd around him, inexplicably fascinated by him and his raggedy jeans. Little trails of pigeons following behind him or a congregation of squirrels sitting at his feet at a park bench. He hadn’t truly noticed it at first, because New York animals tend to be pretty bold anyway, what with all the tourists feeding them. But when he’d walked past a pet shop and saw rabbits and gerbils scurry into the corner of the glass to get close to him, it became very clear something witchy’s going on.

Laughter pulls him from the memory, and he looks up to see Y/N smiling wryly at him. The quiet part of Bucky, which seems to get louder every day, swells with fondness for the smudges of potting mix on her forehead.

“I told you, you’re familiar hunting,” she says, much too pleased at the opportunity to say she told him so.

Bucky rolls his eyes but can’t quite keep the smile out of his voice when he says, “Yeah, yeah, what am I supposed to do about that exactly?”

With a final whispered encouragement, the aloes are officially rehomed, and Y/N stands, wiggling her soil-coated fingers at him as though she’s gonna wipe the leftover dirt on him. Honestly, and sirens should blare in his head at the thought, he wouldn’t mind as long as she was touching him.

Instead, she pulls a damp rag from the pocket of her smock, and Bucky is mesmerized even as she speaks, “Simple. You pick a familiar, or you stop searching for one.”

Bucky groans, because they have definitely had this conversation before.

“And _I_ told _you_, I’m not searching for a familiar! They just keep showing up!”

He is _absolutely_ not looking for a familiar. He’s only been at this witchcraft stuff for like a month, and the last thing he needs is a creature showing up and deciding it wants a witch out of the blue. Frankly, the whole thing is a shitshow.

Y/N must take pity, because she crosses the distance between them and wraps her arms around his waist. The first time she had hugged him since the Sunflower Incident™, he’d just about melted into the floor, his rapidly beating heart the only part of him left with any structural integrity. Even now, he’s still a little mushy, but he has the wherewithal to put his arms around this time.

It lasts longer than his hugs with his other friends, on the rare occasion Nat chooses to hug him that is, and instead of pulling away, his witch continues to speak where her head rests against him.

“Sometimes we do things without knowing it,” she says, slow like she weighs each word before saying it, “like how you bounce your leg when you’re nervous.”

That pulls a laugh from Bucky, remembering the time he’d knocked over a bottle of sweet almond oil with this leg jiggling.

“So, I’m unknowingly seeking out a familiar?” He’s teasing now, because how can you be unconscious of looking for a being to help with magic. It seems like the kind of thing his brain would have explicit control over.

When he turns his face towards her, however, Y/N isn’t laughing. She looks at him thoughtfully, like she’s trying to solve a difficult puzzle.

“You’re seeking out something.”

After a moment of silence, hers pondering and his incredibly confused, they part, and his witch is back to her normal cheer. She guides him, hand in hers, and chatters about pruning the resident pothos because it’s getting self-conscious of increasingly leggy vines.

\----

“Bucky,” she calls, reaching out to him with that huge grin that turns him to goo. He goes to her easily and slips into her arms; there’s nowhere else to go. Their embrace is tight, both of them pulling the other as close as they can. Space between them is nonexistent and still it’s not close enough. Bucky wants to pull her into him and just keep her there, next to his heart and so near to hers he can feel it beating inside him.

He shivers as her fingers trace the edge of his jaw, and she smiles, bright but oh so smug. It’d make him huffy if it wasn’t the cutest thing he’s ever seen: Y/N, looking so proud that he’s so in love. And he is. Totally and wholly in love with her.

She hums at his soft, enamored expression and cups his jaw with her palm. He remembers all the times she’s done this, held him, touched him, soothed away the ache, and it feels like one heart shouldn’t be capable of holding in so much feeling. 

“Bucky…” and this time it’s a murmur, barely heard but seen in the shape of her lips around the word. He practically buckles when the hand on his face pulls him closer and she seals her mouth over his.

Bucky can’t gather enough brain power to think about anything but her mouth and all their points of contact, clutching at her like he’ll fall apart otherwise. And suddenly, he is, falling down, down, down into nothing. He realizes, after a moment, that his eyes are closed, and when he opens them, he’s greeted with the sight of a beaming Y/N kneeling over him.

Golden light haloes her face and her eyelashes cast long, dark shadows down her cheeks. She is a vision of beauty and he aches inside with the need to adore her, to worship her in all the ways a mortal can. He settles instead for threading his fingers through hers and kissing her knuckles. A second passes and he notices the soft pink petals that fall around them, a cherry blossom in bloom nearby, it seems.

Y/N starts to laugh as she too notices the pink blizzard, and the sound is so infectious that Bucky’s mouth smiles of its own accord, and they sit there giggling and grinning. Reaching to the ground around them, she scoops up a couple petals, and leans down to him, their torsos nearly parallel. The distance closes rapidly until scant few inches separate them.

“Close your eyes,” she whispers, and he won’t deny her anything.

There’s a tickling on his eyelids, where pink flowers must now rest, and red flushes through him at the approving hum resonating in the back of her throat. It’s a heady feeling, to be admired by someone so dazzling.

Eyelids still shut, he feels her breath ghost across his mouth and every muscle tenses in the effort not to disturb this moment between them. There must only be a hair’s breadth separating agony from exaltation, and another whisper caresses his face.

“Kiss me, won’t you?”

Bucky’s eyes fly open as a gasp tears out of his heaving chest. Hearts shouldn’t beat so quickly, and he can hardly get enough air in his lungs, and what of it he does still smells sticky with saccharine cherry blossoms. He glances out the window to check that winter didn’t bleed into spring overnight, even as he hears the whistling of a radiator at full blast.

Frustration floods through him at lightning speed, and he barely manages to get the pillow over his face before a strangled yell fills the room. Sat, quietly peering through the glass into his bedroom, are three goddamn pigeons, and Bucky is so fucking _sick_ of seeing the winged pests everywhere he goes. What was still semi-amusing the day before, even if he did hate the attention having a battalion of pigeons following you attracts, now pushes him to boiling.

It’s at this point, when he is so close to losing his goddamn mind, that Steve opens his bedroom door, barely concealed panic on his face.

Bucky feels bad, because usually a strangled yell from his room means a nightmare that sets him back emotionally for days. So, he’s quick to assure Steve with a groan and a finger pointed to the avian hooligans in question.

“The fucking pigeons found me again!” He’s not yelling, but it’s damn near close.

There’s a beat of silence before Steve says, “What pigeons, Buck?” And Bucky shoots up to a sitting position, looking between the pigeons and Steve’s face.

“You don’t see them? On the windowsill?”

Steve looks out the window and raises an eyebrow.

“No?”

Bucky nearly screams, because it’s just his fucking luck that not only is he being followed by pigeons but he’s seeing them when they aren’t there, too. He’s finally lost it, having survived hell itself, the winged-rats doing him in is the cruelest irony.

After a few moments of wallowing into the palms of his hands, Bucky hears raucous laughter and he turns to find Steve doubled over and shoulders shaking. The episode lasts for much too long, but finally Steve stands, wiping actual tears from the corners of his eyes.

“You are such an _asshole_! You scared the shit outta me, had me thinking I was _imagining_ the fuckers.”

Steve chuckles again, reminded of the horrified expression on his best friend’s face. “Yeah well, _you_ scared the shit outta me with your yelling. Could’ve been getting killed in here.”

Bucky winces, because yeah, he could’ve handled it a little better. Steve waves off his apology and leaves, shouting “Say hi to Y/N for me!”

\----

They sit in the main part of the shop this time. Y/N insisted because she didn’t "want the non-flowering plants to feel bad”. So, crowded around the old chest that serves as her counter, they persuade tulip bulbs into sprouting stems and then pretty pink flowers.

Bucky has always loved tulips, for being some of the first flowers and the bright green of their stems. They exude youth, like tender younglings even fully grown.

When a bloomed tulip is set beside a recently flowered pink peony bush, a nonexistent breeze fills the room with the phantom smell of cherry blossoms. The dream, the beautiful, cursed dream comes to him a flash, and all he can think about is their mouths sealed together. He can’t hear anything over the sound of blood rushing through his ears, and a thundering heartbeat knocking against his chest. He looks up and sees Y/N petting fondly at a soft, waxy petal, and she turns to him, joy written all over her face. She says something but her voice is lost in the warm static flooding and overflowing and all he can do is stare.

Her brows shift downward and Bucky forces himself to relax, to push his heart rate down even as it fights to thunk harder.

“…Bucky?”

As he comes back into himself, he realizes there’s a palm on his cheek and the back of a hand on his forehead. Y/N sits close to him, worried pinch of her face softening as his eyes clear.

“Are you okay? You feel warm.” Bucky pushes his cheek into her palm, soaking up the moment before he pulls away, certain his face must be tomato red.

“Yeah, I’m ok. You don’t gotta worry about me,” he says, pulling her hands from his face and holding them in his.

It scares him, that he’d barely tamed the urge to kiss her, how, for a moment, he’d been somewhere else entirely. Thinking back on the worry on Y/N’s face, he covers the fear with a smile and picks up a fresh tulip bulb and ignores the scrutinizing look she gives him. 

Hours later, after giggling and nurturing tulips to maturity, Bucky begs leave and walks out into frigid air with a funny salute. On the stoop waits a skinny, white cat. It catches his attention with a meow, and Bucky feels a smile crawl over his own face at the pink nose and bright blue eyes. Stepping down onto the sidewalk, the cat falls into step with him, though it keeps a respectful distance from his heavy boots. He sighs. 

"Guess you're following me home, huh?" 

Bucky doesn't notice a distinct lack of pigeons. 

\----

The dreams are getting worse.

What was once subconscious wish fulfillment in the form of imaginary-kissing the love of his very long life, now makes him stutter miserably when Y/N so much as makes eye contact. There’s no way she hasn’t noticed, but she hasn’t said anything, and Bucky is unendingly grateful.

This morning’s came in the form of, and he winces in shame as recollection overwhelms him, a mostly bare Y/N, modesty draped only in thick, white lily petals as she reached towards him. She called him, beckoning in a wanton voice that even in memory sends red heat to previously cool cheeks. Not for the first time since these floral-sweet dreams began to torture him with things he knows he can’t have, he woke _affected_.

The worst part of all the terrible, horrible things these dreams do to him, is the smell and taste of fragrant flowers as the dreams occur and each time he remembers them. Today it’s lilies, gardenias the day before, and on and on. It is a special kind of torture being a witchling that works regularly with plants. One pink peony can send him spiraling into embarrassed want.

It’s with forced optimism, illustrated best perhaps by the fearful look on Steve’s face as Bucky greeted him with a manic smile, that Bucky manages to leave the brownstone. Dread weighs him down, but he refuses to acknowledge it.

The morning outside greets him like many before, cold, gray, and smelling like inevitable rain showers too heavy to ignore and too light to bother with an umbrella. New York is the best city in the world, but the weather sucks. Unlike the many mornings before, a spot of white waits patiently by the door, nonchalantly bathing its face with tongue-dampened paws. 

Bucky steps closer, and the white cat from before comes into focus, chirping up at him in greeting and walking by his side once again.

“Hey, buddy, haven’t seen you in a few. I'm sure you had some very important business to attend to.”

The cat chirps again, tail poised in a high curve as they make their way to the subway station. They get some looks, what with a cat following dutifully into the last car and sitting politely at his feet until the train pulls into Chambers St. and they transfer to the 1. This, however, is much better than the abject terror he had become accustomed to when hordes of pigeons crowded behind him on the platform.

For all its not being human, the cat makes an excellent subway companion, letting Bucky stew in silence but trilling quietly when he stares too long into nothingness. Short of paying the fare, it might as well be a regular New Yorker.

When they arrive at the shop, Bucky nearly forgets the cat is there, until indignant yowling sounds off through the street when the door shuts between them. He turns back to get the cat when Y/N steps into the room from the wardrobe and Gall squawks from his perch on her shoulder.

“Ianus! I thought we discussed being kinder to guests.” There’s a rattling of the door in its frame, and Bucky interprets this as the door talking back. Y/N growls, “See if I don’t have your chimes removed! Then we’ll know who has better taste in friends.”

The door stops rattling in an instant, and a tiny cat-sized sliver opens just enough for the white cat to slither into the shop with a low snarl at Ianus. Returned to his side once again, the cat meows plaintively at Bucky and then Y/N, who bends and coos sweetly at the furry little interloper.

Won over with chin scratches and soft whispers, the cat purrs and weaves between the witch’s legs, rubbing gratefully along her shins.

“Oh, he’s beautiful, Bucky! What’s his name?” She asks, looking up at Bucky from her near squat.

Bucky’s brain stalls at the sight of Y/N whispering praises to the white cat and smiling so pretty up at him. The air smells heavily of lily. Finally, he manages to stutter out, “I don’t know, he’s not my cat.”

This is apparently the wrong answer, as both cat and witch turn to him with matching unimpressed expressions. She picks up the cat, who lopes gracefully onto her shoulders, draping himself across her neck much like a fur scarf. Gall, having lost his prime seat, perches dutifully on her forearm. If Bucky weren’t already aware of witchcraft and his place in it, the sight would be jarring.

“He sure looks like your cat, coming with you into the shop and all that,” Y/N says, eyebrow raised in an expression that is eerily similar to Natasha’s. He too often forgets they knew each other first.

“He’s just a stray that followed me here from my house. This is the pigeons all over again,” he says, although it feels like he’s trying to convince himself more than anything.

The cat meows, and it’s clear, despite a lack of language, that he’s offended by the implication.

“I don’t see any pigeons getting into my shop, do you? And that doesn’t answer the question of his name. You didn’t ask?” 

A single finger strokes along the cat’s nose bridge and it purrs again, one bright blue eye staying open to glare at Bucky, who rubs sheepishly at the back of his neck.

“I didn’t think to. Plus, how’s it gonna tell me if I don’t speak stray?” he says, somehow finding himself ganged up on by a witch, a cat, and a bird-creature. With how much the rattling caw sounds like laughter, he could swear Gall was making fun of him.

Y/N smiles at him, that way she does when she knows something he doesn’t. It’s as infuriating as it is beautiful.

“Why don’t you _ask_ and find out?”

He huffs, sure she’s just messing with him, even as he knows she is a witch, like him, in a witch shop, with a crowravencreature that laughs at him.

“What’s your name then, cat?”

The cat raises his head, looks Bucky in the eye, and meows clear and loud. The meow doesn’t take on new meaning, and he doesn’t suddenly speak an undiscovered feline language, but the word is in his head all the same, as though it had been there all along.

Y/N looks at him expectantly, but he can’t take his eyes off the cat’s blue eyes as they wait for him to speak it aloud.

“Alpine.”

The cat, Alpine, jumps from Y/N’s shoulder and rubs along Bucky’s legs as he’d done hers and sits by his boots. He gives into the temptation and squats down, scratching a furry cheek affectionately.

The grin comes to him unbidden but takes over his face all at once. He looks up at his witch, who wears a matching ecstatic smile.

“Finally! Now I can teach you how to set a fair familiar contract!”

God, he loves her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...things are finally heating up. Let me know how you all feel about smut (for this work I'd lean towards flowery, poetic smut instead of super explicit) and whether you'd like to see any at all. Sound off in the comments or hit me up on tumblr.
> 
> Outside of that, any feedback whatsoever is appreciated or if you just wanna chat. <3
> 
> Thank you again for reading.


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